søndag 6. mars 2016

The sound of silence...

Not that we got any much of that around here, as I am at work right now, but probably just because of that I started to think about it. What the right kind of sounds mean to us, and what influence they have in our daily work or in our time of leisure.I am sitting here trying to get my weekly report done and dusted. It's the same struggle every week as it happens, but this time the vessel is working only a very few yards away from a rig out here on the eastern side of Scotland. Well, that's not an uncommon place for us to work, and I have not been bothered too much about it for the last couple of hours other than feeling the urge to walk out to take a few snaps of the thing and fun stuff like that.I used the black and kind of new german rangefinder with the 35mm thing in front for a few good ones, plus I had a few frames left inside one of them old Nikon FM2 cameras I had to get rid of. You know... last frame and such. When the counter has been staying on "34" for something that feels like an eternity you get the itch. So I fished out that good old Nikkor 105mm f/2.5 lens and went on. You might see something some day if all went well.

I seem to get back to this theme, again and again. This time the pattern is kind of repeated in that fence as well. Clever, huh? I can't tell you much about what camera was used or anything. It's a long time since this happened now. Probably some Nikon. Maybe a FE, FM or maybe even an F3? Something like that for sure.

Back inside to continue the work on the report, the gas alarm suddenly start off over there, on the rig. And believe me, you will hear the gas alarm, even if you were forced to use the chief engineers ears! And it never stops, and it makes you wonder what's really happening over there, just a few yards away. And the alarm goes on and on, and you turn around just to see flashing lights all around the place, but not a soul to see. I would think that some of the people over there would have instructions to go to the muster station, or to a life raft or something, but obviously not. They might have some safe zone inside the big thing? Or some other bright idea of where the safest place to be is. And then you think; hey... what about me then? With me window facing a million of pipes and stuff, close enough to touch'em... where am I supposed to hide if hell breaks loose over there?Well... better not think about it would probably be the clever thing to do. But that's not easy with that alarm going off all around you. Just believe me!

Sure! On that tiny small road towards the lighthouse in Scrabster it is. And it's powered up, the lighthouse, probably by the power inside those cables running along those lovely pylons. I can feel that the sounds are of the right type and kind, inside this snap.

Then I thought, or at least tried to think, about the sounds back home. You know at the cottage down there by the sea, away from it all. What would it be like to sit down there to write this report? What background noise would there be? Well, it depends a bit if the doors would be open or not, but in worst case there would be birds singing, some water dripping (most likely) and on a good day there would be one or two careful swosh'es from the sea as it gently hit the rocks. And that's it. Unless I played music, of course, but you can't count that. That would be my own fault, and not to count as background noise as such.I think the work would have floated along like nothing at all, and be done before I even had started the writing. Or at least it would have felt like that. At least that's what I think, being out here at sea listening to the bloody gas alarm, the engines, the engine fans, the thruster noise and the forever going on talking in the hallway just outside my cabin. And my slight tinnitus, of course. I don't know if that's what I got, but I suspect it very much. It comes and goes, as it happens, and is a lot more absent than present. Which is a good thing I suppose.

The right kind of sound is somewhat important. I think that would have to be the conclusion of todays theme. And there it stopped, lo and behold, the gas alarm... thank you, whoever found the stop button eventually. Well... I better go back to that report then. The captain have been waiting for it for a few hours now, but I have been busy doing other stuff, as you are when someone want something right now. I even got a blog to maintain, among lots of stuff. Oh, and the snaps today is from Scotland, just west of us here and a wee bit north. From Scrabster, to be precise. They got the right kind of sounds up there as well, at times. At least if you go over that hill, and a bit further up north to where it's nothing except sheep and cliffs, and sea... lots of sea.

1 kommentar:

Another great read, Roy. Don't fancy the sound of that gas alarm myself...think I'd be trying to put some distance between myself and the danger zone - as much as possible, anyway. I hope the Captain liked your report - it's a pain when work gets in the way of blogging, eh?! :)